Bitcoin is still currently the most popular cryptocurrency. It’s the “new” thing along with blockchain technology, even if the price has come down a bit. However, if you’re thinking of buying any cryptocurrencies. You should learn how they’re taxed. Because yes, you will absolutely have to pay taxes on cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrency Isn’t Actually A Currency

The IRS considers cryptocurrencies “property” similar to how it does for stocks or personal property. Which makes the idea of buying things with cryptocurrency an awful idea. Here’s why.

Say you want to buy a sofa with Bitcoin. To actually make that purchase, you’re actually making two sales. You technically are first selling your Bitcoin to convert it to money (sale #1). Then you’re using that money to make the purchase of something, like a sofa (sale #2).

So to the IRS you are selling your Bitcoin and need to pay the short-term capital gain tax (25%) if you held that bitcoin less than a year, or long-term capital gain tax (15%) if you held it longer than a year. Then you will have the cash to now buy the sofa where you will pay sales tax on the sofa to actually buy it.

*Note the capital gain tax is factored for someone who earns $75,000 annually. Your tax percentage will fluctuate based on your annual salary. We’re also assuming you’re paying the capital gain tax because Bitcoin is worth more than when you bought it.

So you’re paying tax when you sell Bitcoin and then again for the sales tax.

Cryptocurrencies Are Monitored

Since cryptocurrencies aren’t affiliated with any government they shouldn’t be monitored, that was the idea, right? Wrong, Bitcoin is monitored by the IRS…to a degree.

According to the IRS, all your Bitcoin trades should be reported to the IRS because you should be paying taxes on the buying and selling of all cryptocurrencies. Every single time. So if you’re thinking of using sites that accept Bitcoin, all those purchases need to be reported to the IRS. Every time you sell Bitcoin.

So every time you buy something from Overstock.com, which accept Bitcoin. Those transactions should be (often not) reported to the IRS since you’re essentially selling “property”. That can be a tax headache.

During the Bitcoin craze, the IRS felt that Bitcoin sales were being under-reported because they expect people to report their own Bitcoin sales. Each year from 2013 to 2015, only about 800 taxpayers claimed Bitcoin gains. If you don’t report these gains, you can later be audited by the IRS, which no one wants. So be careful and report your Bitcoin gains.

If you think Bitcoin provides anonymity, think again.

In November 2017 a California Federal Court ordered Coinbase, the popular platform to buy and sell cryptocurrencies, to turn over thousands of records of customers to the IRS. It requested a list of everyone who bought, sold, sent or received more than $20,000 worth of Bitcoins between 2013 and 2015 (source). This could later be anyone who bought/sold more than $600 worth of cryptocurrencies.

You can expect the IRS to continue to monitor cryptocurrency brokers in the future.

Tax Laws Haven’t Caught Up With Cryptocurrency

If these seem harsh on Cryptocurrency, it’s a debate currently going in a legislature near you. Cryptocurrency is moving so fast (Bitcoin $1,000 to $19,000 in 2017) that the tax laws don’t have time to catch up. Especially since a digital currency is considered “property” by the IRS, it’ll continue to cause taxation confusion and headaches if you try to think of it as a currency.

As Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies gain momentum, more people will use sites like Coinbase or the new RobinCrypto to purchase these new cryptocurrencies in hopes the price will skyrocket. In doing so you need to understand the tax implications and your responsibility to report your cryptocurrency activity.

If you’ve seen our little pop-up or emails, we made a deal with our readers. We promised if you signed up for our email list, we’d do a drawing and a lucky person would win $100 to start investing. We’re doing this!

Remember these pop-ups?

Why Are We Doing This?

Lots of websites do different give-a-ways to encourage people to join their email newsletter. We wanted to try this, but actually, do something cool.

We didn’t want to create a “90 Ways To Save Money” pdf to give away or anything like that for new sign-ups. Frankly it was overdone and in reality, the easiest way to save money is not to spend it. There, that’s my free pdf.

So I asked myself, what do our readers actually want. Well, they want more money to invest with and pay off bills. So what if we gave (PayPal) someone $100 to use to invest. If they used that money to invest, it would grow to a lot more than $100.

I liked this idea.

How The Competition Worked

It was easy, if you signed up for our email list at any point, and still a member by the end of 2017, you would be eligible to win. We would do a drawing at the end of 2017 (actually this week) and whoever was selected, we would PayPal you $100 to do whatever they wanted.

Yes, you could use that $100 to invest, pay down bills or buy new shoes. We obviously can’t control what you will spend that money on, but we will STRONGLY encourage you to invest it. Investing is cool!

How We Selected A Winner

I’m going to do something no one ever does. Share how many email subscribers they have. It’s a bit scary sharing this because if it doesn’t seem like a lot, you can easily judge us based on how many other people subscribe. So vulnerable moment, go!

We currently have 290 email subscribers to Wallet Squirrel. All of them are eligible to win the $100!

To select a winner, I went to Mailchimp and reviewed the complete list of email addresses we had. This is how I discovered we had 290 email sign-ups. That is freaking awesome!!!!!

Then I went to Google’s Random Generator, basically, just typed “Random Number Generator” in Google, try it here! At the top of the page, there is a generator where you enter the min/max amount and hit “GENERATE. I got “17”.

So at this point, I scrolled down Mailchimp’s list to locate number #17.

I’m now shooting them an email to let them know they won! Plus to see if this email works for their Paypal account. So check your email because I may have money for you!

Is The Competition Now Over?

Not even close, I REALLY like this idea. It’s a great way to encourage people to sign up for our email list and everyone gets a chance to win some money to do what you want (investing suggested). =P

In 2018, we’re doing this again but it’s for a chance to win $200 at the end of the year. Sign up and enter!

I Started Investing 3 Years Ago, Best Decision I Ever Made

In the beginning of 2015 I paid off my credit card debt for the first time and started to learn about investing.

It was terrifying, but so totally worth it!

How I Perceived Investing As A Kid

Up until 3 years ago (I was 28), I knew NOTHING about investing. To me, investing was some insane, chaotic spree that made rich people rich and the middle class poor. I didn’t know how it worked, but I knew tons of people who lost money during the recession.

If you’ve ever watched any movie that talks about Wall Street or Investing, it’ll have your brain swimming in confusion trying to understand it. Were they just trying to make it look hard and impressive? (Yes).

I was terrified of investing, I just shut down anytime someone talked about investing and assumed they were a financial genius if they owned stock. Someone who had enough money to pay their bills, live their life and put something extra away investing for retirement was a financial god to me.

I Started to Learn About Money On My Own

Like I said before, at the beginning of 2015 (3 years ago) I paid off my credit card debt after paying countless $70 monthly payments. So once I paid it off, I wanted to use that $70 for something else, something reasonable.

I will admit my company did have a financial planner come into our office and talk about our 401(k) plan. While the company plan was pretty awful, the financial planner did a great job at terrifying me to death.

I will always remember their words “Running out of money in retirement is worse than death”

Well f*&k, that was more terrifying than Halloween. So I started to learn more about money and how it worked.

I started listening to finance podcasts. Not the hardcore stock analysis ones, but the more Investing for Dummies type of podcasts like “Listen, Money, Matters”. I LOVED that podcasts and in my mind, being surrounded by those announcers talking about money and finance as a regular thing, I began thinking of money in a different way.

After reading books and listening podcasts. I started to view money not as static thing to sit in my bank account, but more as income streams.

Understanding how much money I had in my bank account mattered less than how much I had coming in each month. That’s why investing became a fascination because it’s one of the most common income streams for people.

I Tried Investing $100 To See What Happens

On the podcast “Listen, Money, Matters” they raved about the investing app “Betterment” (Adam uses Betterment and did a review). They brought the Betterment team on the podcast and explained it and how it’s meant for people who know nothing about investing but want to start. That was me!

I remember how nervous I was signing up. I had to put in my info and social security number. I was convinced that I would immediately lose all my money straight away and because they knew my social security number, the IRS would start to hunt me down.

This was a legit fear I had.

Since I had so much anxiety, I only invested $100 to see what happened. I invested in a “moderate risk” portfolio which they automatically invested for me. All I did was put in $100 and waited to see what happens.

They say not to check it daily, but I did. Oh my goodness, for the first week I checked it hourly. I wanted to see EXACTLY how the stock market worked. After a week I limited myself to daily. So for 5 months, I checked my Betterment account every day, scruitinizing everything that happened.

However, I found that my money fluctuated. One day it went down to $99 then up to $102 and slowly kept rising. This helped me understand how the market moved (at least during those 5 months), how it worked and it slowly became less mysterious.

In fact, I started to notice little things like every once in a while, I would receive extra lumps of change in my account. Just a few pennies, but they were dividends. I received money just from owning certain stocks. I couldn’t tell which stocks with Betterment because it doesn’t show that amount of micro detail, but it was a great feeling.

Then I started to invest more and look at other stockbrokers (companies which you need to invest) like the Robinhood App (I still use Robinhood, here’s my full review on how it works). With Robinhood I could start to pick my individual stocks and it was amazing! I chose stocks that were on the safe side such as Apple, Realty Income and Johnson & Johnson that were well known and established. I knew if these companies tanked, there was something seriously wrong with our economy, so I felt comfortable.

I Wasn’t Addicted, But I Was Obsessed

After I learned how the stock market worked, I felt comfortable but wanted to see more gains than the couple of cents I had been earning. So I could have gone in two different directions. I could have started to invest in risky stocks for bigger gains (don’t recommend) or find new ways to earn money so I could buy more stocks. I did the latter.

Today, It Absolutely Was Worth It.

I’m not advocating for a certain investing approach, but I do want you to see money as income streams rather than a lump sum. It absolutely changed my life.

Before I was happy with $2,500 in my bank account. It was more than any of my friends had. I now keep $4,000 in both my checking and savings account as an Emergency Fund and invest the extra money each month in my investment portfolio.

Knowing I have the extra money and extra streams of income each month gives me SO MUCH more confidence to know I’ll be OK if an emergency comes up or I want to go on a vacation. That piece of mind is one of the greatest feelings ever.

https://walletsquirrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/I-Started-Investing-Best-Decision-Ever-Header.png5121024Wallet Squirrelhttps://www.walletsquirrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Wallet-Squirrel-Logo.pngWallet Squirrel2018-01-18 13:20:552018-01-18 14:03:08I Started Investing 3 Years Ago, Best Decision I Ever Made

This is crazy! In most cases if something makes you unhappy. You quit doing it! Yet most of us go to work every day at places we don’t want to be.

Are we idiots?

Are You Unhappy With Your Job?

I was recently asked if I was unhappy with my job? I was a little surprised a co-worker asked me this. Their reasoning was that I USED to be extremely happy and excited about everything, now I was more monotone or lacked the excitement I used to have.

Honestly, I was a little pissed. No one wants to be told that they lack anything. Yet in reality, I was madder at myself that I let it show that I was unhappy. I’m part Irish, I’m used to bottling up my feelings and not tell anyone that anything is wrong.

It made me ask myself if I was unhappy with my job? It was pretty scary.

What Does Unhappiness at Work Look Like?

If you ask yourself “Are You Unhappy At Work?” it’s not an easy answer. So I started to create a list of signs that would force me to see the truth.

Do I hate waking up in the mornings and coming in for work?

Do I feel I have no future at the company I’m at?

Does the day fly by or drag on?

Do I get excited about new projects or is it dread?

Am I doing the same thing over and over or is it new and exciting?

How do I describe my job to new people?

Does Jenny in Accounting ask if you’re unhappy at work? WTF

Dang, I totally answered yes for quite a few of these. So do I quit my job now or start looking for a new one? I freaked out just writing this list.

Does it even matter though if I hate my job? Whether I hate it or love it, I still NEED it. I have bills to pay and the money I make can buy things that make me happy. Should something I do 40 hours a week need to make me happy?

Well, yes….. Your job should totally make you happy. It absolutely should. However, before you quit you should answer the same question I’m now asking.

What Would Make You Happy At Your Current Job?

The other day I pulled a senior co-worker aside and asked them “What do you think I should do in 2018 to improve the company, goals, vision, etc?” I was expecting some generic answer like things to help the bottom line. However, he surprised me entirely.

One of the best questions I’ve ever been asked was “What do you want to do that makes you happy?”.

Holy Cow! It’s a simple question, but one I’ve never been asked before. I couldn’t actually answer right there and there though. I told them I had to think about it and I’m still thinking about it.

What would make you happy at your current job?

Most people say better pay, but that’s a reward, not necessarily something that affects your everyday duties. What would you change in your day-to-day duties that would make you happier?

Happy Thanksgiving (American readers)! However, if you’re an international reader, Thanksgiving in America is just a day where people are reminded to be thankful for everything we have and celebrate with eating lots of turkey and pie. Usually surrounded by friends and family.

However in this Thanksgiving post, I wanted to be reminded of how far I’ve come, and our readers, in understanding finance. Because it wasn’t long ago (only in 2015 I paid off $6,000 of credit card debt) that I knew NOTHING about finance and started learning. So I found some interesting finance facts to remind myself of how far I’ve come.

10 Fun Finance Facts

Student Loans are in the trillions of dollars and two of five student loan accounts become delinquent within the first five years of making an attempt to pay student loan payments (source). I have auto-deduct on my student loans, it helps A LOT!

Nearly 30% of Americans don’t have at least 3 months of money to get them by if something happens (source). Personally, my Emergency Fund has 3 months of cash I can tap before I start pulling from my investment accounts to get me by.

In the days of the pilgrims (see thanksgiving themed fact) a US Dollar was called a “buck” because the pelt of a male deer was worth a dollar (source). I didn’t know this before!

Did you know Walt Disney every year for the holidays gave his housekeeper stocks of Disney? By the time his housekeeper, Thelma Howard died, she amassed a $9.5 million dollar fortune (source). Be nice to housekeepers and thankful for everyone doing these thankless jobs!

Don’t take investment advice from celebrities. I’m thankful I never have. The Rapper 50 Cent in 2011 started tweeting about H&H Imports (stock ticker HNHI), an investment he owns and told people to invest. Although his tweets are now taken down, he made $8.7 million from his comments on the penny stock (source). Can’t imagine his followers did as well.

If you’re having a bad day, just remember Ronald Wayne. Ronald was a third co-founder of Apple along with Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Ronald sold his 10% stake in Apple in 1976 for $800. That 10% stake is now worth more than $35 billion (source). I’m thankful not to have that guilt on my conscious. Remember buy/hold!

I hate coins, but I’m thankful they add up! In 2015, the TSA (the people at airport security lines) collected $765,759.15 in loose change. This is the money people just left behind in those long lines and x-ray machine bins. They get to keep it all too (source)!

Buy and hold stocks are a thing. As of January 2013, there were 16 people left in the world who were born in the 1800’s. If they invested (and held) in the stock market, US stocks had increased 28,000% during their lifetimes (source). I’m thankful to start buying and holding so young. I could totally live to be a hundred.

46.1% of Americans will die with less than $10,000 in assets (source). This factoid haunts my dreams. I’m thankful I have more than this currently.

In 2011, US charitable giving was $298 billion. That’s more than the GDP of all the countries in the world, except 33 of them (source). That’s pretty awesome and something to be thankful for!

Have a great day everyone!

https://walletsquirrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Thanks-Giving-Post-Header.png5121024Wallet Squirrelhttps://www.walletsquirrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Wallet-Squirrel-Logo.pngWallet Squirrel2017-11-23 11:33:282017-11-23 11:34:22Happy Thanksgiving! Here Are Some Facts To Be Thankful For

Let me preface that I used to be a waiter so I understand the value of tipping, but as a customer, tipping is the worst! It’s psychological warfare at the end of every meal that results in either anxiety that you haven’t paid enough or havoc on your wallet for paying too much.

Then exactly how much too much and too little for a tip? Common restaurant adequate says a tip should be 15%-20% pretax, but then why does every restaurant leave the anxiety for the customer to decide how much to tip?

Let’s face it, an extra 20% of a $60 check is still a lot on your budget. That’s $12 the menu doesn’t mention.

This history of tipping is murky

From what I found in the Business Insider and Washington Post (and it’s a murky origin story) tipping originated around 17t century England where the word T.I.P. meant “To Insure Promptitude”. The upper class provided extra “allowance” to servers (lower class) to be given faster service.

This practice made its way to America after the Civil War when wealthy Americans started traveling back and forth to Europe. So we can blame them, and I do.

Tipping Today just allows Restaurants to pay it’s servers poorly

Because waiters (I’m referring to both men and women) receive tips, the federal tipped minimum wage for tipped workers is as little as $2.13 an hour because they receive tips to supplement the difference (source).

That’s kind of ridiculous, right! Restaurants are allowed to only pay their servers $2.13 an hour and expect servers to get the rest of their income from tips. So when you pay your bill, your essentially paying for the food/environment with your bill and your tip pays the waiter’s salary.

If you’re a waiter, the customer is actually your boss since they’re the ones that pay you. So every day, every hour, you have a different boss. Yikes.

How much do you pay your server then?

According to Google, yes I googled “How Much Should I Tip”, you should be paying your server 15%-20% of your pre-tax bill.

This is where the Anxiety starts

What the frack is it? Do I tip 15% or 20%?

What if the server was bad?

If my bill is $100, does the server get an extra $20 just because they played telephone with my order from the table to kitchen and walked the food back? What if they were awful? We’ve all had bad servers who ignored us. They chatted in the back or brought us the wrong items with a rude attitude. Is that when you tip them 15% instead of 20% or even less?

What about if the food was awesome but the service was terrible? ugh

Should I feel both angry at my server for bad service but feel guilty since they’re paid so poorly? How should I feel?

I recall a study conducted found that bad servers still received 15%-20% regardless of how good the service was because people felt it was the socially acceptable thing to do. No one wants to be a bad tipper, but should I tip poorly to save a bit of money and prove a point to the server?

What if the server was awesome?

You plan to spend a certain amount of money eating out and even account for a 20% tip. Do you exceed your budget further if your server was fantastic? Should your server’s awesomeness impact your planned budget? Should they be worthy of more than a 20% tip of that you’re still paying off student loans?

Damn it Janet, you were so great that now my tip for you exceeds my alotted food budget.

Are you a bad person if you don’t acknowledge their above and beyond service or will they quit trying harder if people don’t tip more for the great service?

What about tipping during group meals?

Now imagine eating out with a group of friends, each pays their own bills and it always ends with laying your bills on the table in sight of everyone. If you only tipped 10% or 15%, does that make you a jerk if everyone else tipped 20% – 25%?

On the other hand, are you a jerk for tipping more than everyone? Are you just flaunting money because you can spend more than everyone else or does it make you more generous or charitable?

This is why I hate Tipping!

Why does a nice meal out with friends have to end with awkward silences while everyone calculates percentages in their heads while they secretly judge the performance of the server? Ending in silent comparison of who tipped more, being more generous and charitable than the rest of the group.

I now tip 20% regardless of service

Tipping makes me so anxious that I’m just starting to tip 20% regardless of service (paying with my credit card). The server can refill my drink at the perfect time, every time or completely forget I exist. Tipping a regular 20% fits the socially acceptable tip amount to overcome the unnecessary anxiety at the cost of a few extra dollars on my budget. Sorry budget.

What do you tip your servers? There is obviously no right answer otherwise they wouldn’t leave the tip field on every check blank. I REALLY want to know. Do you judge your waiter everytime or give them a flat fee regardless like me?

Oh my goodness, blog post photo sizes were SO confusing before I wrote this post. If you look through our older posts, they were all over the place because we made what looked pretty at any size. Now we have the data on the perfect blog post photo size for sharing on social media.

The Perfect Blog Post Image Size

Forget burying the lead, the new dimensions we’re using for our future blog posts are:

Horizontal – 1,024 x 512 px

Vertical – 800 x 1,200 px

Quick article right? Keep reading if you want to know how we came to this perfect ratio of social media and blog magic.

Apparently, this is a pretty popular ratio that many social media companies (like Buffer) and social media agencies came to through their research. I’m focusing on the ideal image size for sharing articles and photos, but if you want the ideal image size for every social media photo spot like profile photos and cover images, check out Omnicore Agency’s infographic.

We Did the Math: Ideal Image Size by Social Platform

I’m focusing on the 4 major social media channels, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest. Yes, there are Instagram, Google+, Tumbler, etc. Yet most bloggers don’t use these because they’re not great platforms for sharing articles, images and posts. So we’ll focus on the big 4.

No matter what size you actually upload to any of these platforms, it’ll automatically be scaled to whatever social media platform you’re using. Here is what they scale to.

Facebook Shared Link – 1,200 x 628 px

Whenever you add a URL to Facebook, it will create a “shared link” post. This will add your message in the text box above and below use the URL you submitted to automatically a Facebook article that uses your featured image as the post image. It’ll look like this:

To get the most out image size (bigger is better) out of your shared article link, you’ll want your Facebook photos to be 1,200 x 628 px. If most people find you via Facebook, maybe it’s worth making all your blog post images this size to get the most image dimensions and Facebook real estate.

Twitter Shared Link – 1,024 x 576

Twitter has over 313 Million active users a month. If you’re not on twitter you likely don’t exist. So if you want to exist on Twitter, you REALLY need to use images to convey your ideas and share your articles. Tweets with images get 2x more engagement than those without.

If your adding images to your tweets you want to use the right sized images to get the most real estate for your tweets because a regular tweet only last 18 minutes. Twitter uses a 2:1 ratio and 1,024 x 576 px is ideal. This is what the photo will look like when it’s selected otherwise, Twitter will minimize it to 506 x 253 px in the Twitter stream looking like this:

LinkedIn Shared Link – 552 x 368 px

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn will only allow you to add one image per post. So you can get creative having one image made up of multiple images or use one good image. Either way the ideal ratio for LinkedIn according to a moderator on LinkedIn’s help forum, the ideal size for image uploads is 522 x 368 px.

Anything larger than that will be automatically cropped for the image preview to fit their maximum width and height. Your actual image won’t be cropped if selected for full view, but most people only look at the image preview.

Pinterest has said that the best aspect ratio are images with a 2:3 ratio. This could be 600 pixels wide by 900 pixels tall or 800 pixels wide by 1,200 pixels tall. You get the idea. However, the actual Pinterest feed on the main page and on boards shows pins with a width of 236 px and adjustable height.

Conclusion

We’re going to start using the perfect blog post image size to help us get more real estate from social sharing, what image size do you use for your blog post images?

“the average person eats out 4.5 times per week costing them $12.14 per meal on a national average”

That means the average person spends $54.63 eating out a week or $218.52 a month on just eating out. Unless you earn lots of money, is the obvious answer to eat in?

What About Eating In?

Most people think they can quit going out to start having nice and relaxing meals in. Here’s the thing with eating in, the movies get it wrong.

It’s not always a romantic and soothing experience.

Often times it’s a “Crap, I need to eat. What should I cook?” experience that you pray to the food gods you have the right ingredients in your fridge and dishes are clean.

Let’s face it, we are busy in our lives and don’t have the time to visit the store every day buying new ingredients for a new recipe we found on the internet.

In fact, according to the Harvard Business Review, researcher Eddie Yoon over two decades collected data as consultants for consumer packaged goods companies. He found that:

15% of people say they LOVE to cook

50% of people say they HATE to cook

35% of people say they are ambivalent about cooking (mixed feelings)

If you’re one of the people that hate cooking, you should create a meal plan to make it as easy as possible. Plan a week in advance what you’re going to eat for each meal and know how to cook it. This way you’ll have the ingredients and can plan accordingly for time.

However, not all plans work out.

Introduce The Peanut Butter and Jelly Theory

Let me first admit that I have an addiction to commenting on Finance forums, Facebook Groups, and Blogs. The mechanics of building wealth are simple and I’m always happy to remind people that things are often more simple than they appear. Like how I responded this comment and created “The Peanut Butter and Jelly Theory”.

I get it, you want to start saving money on food and you’re looking for suggestions from the personal finance community to help.

Answers ranged from getting a crockpot to make meals simple, cooking large meals on Sunday and eating leftovers throughout the week, to buying frozen meals that may not be great for you, but easy to prepare.

All of the responses skirted around the idea that a solid weekly meal plan is the best option to help you save money on food. However, sometimes these meals don’t work out for a number of reasons and one fall off the wagon can end up at the local McDonalds.

So I introduced the Peanut Butter and Jelly Theory. The cost-effective, quickest meal ever to keep your budget on track.

This is easily the most actionable thing you can do to start immediately saving on your food budget. In many cases when people eat out, it’s due to convenience because they don’t have anything at home that sounds appealing. That’s when the Peanut Butter and Jelly Theory comes in handy.

Stash emergency PB&J supplies in your kitchen. When hungry but have nothing else, eat a PB&J. If you’re not hungry for a PB&J, wait 2 hours until you’re hungry enough to eat a PB&J.

Sometimes a PBJ isn’t exactly what you’re craving and your favorite restaurant sounds better, or your “husband would not be happy about that” (see comment). Well suck it up, you’ll soon be out of debt and you can buy your husband a jet ski. Everyone loves a jet ski.

Try the Peanut Butter and Jelly Theory

If you want to save THOUSANDS on food budgets, you should try the Peanut Butter and Jelly Theory! Meals cost less than $1 to make, you’ll save time and money. Most importantly, you’ll have a secret stash of PBJs to make when you get those cravings to go out and spend money.

You’re welcome.

Disclaimer: Wallet Squirrel did not invent the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich, just an advocate of saving money. Wallet Squirrel was not sponsored by big PBJ corporations to promote their superior and delicious product.

Unroll.Me Review – The Best 5 Minutes for Your Email’s Inbox

This Unroll.Me Review is going to show you why you should spend 5 minutes every month using this tool to clean up your email’s inbox. At the end of each month, your inbox will be writing you a thank you letter.

Well, today we will talk about Unroll.Me and really just how easy it is to use!

What is Unroll.Me

To start off this Unroll.Me review, let’s answer a couple questions as to what the tool does and who the company behind the tool is.

Unroll.Me is a free service that allows you to easily (an understatement) unsubscribe from all of those pesky email subscriptions.

After signing in, the algorithm scans throughout your inbox looking for e-commerce emails. Once found, the application lists them out allowing you to decide what to do with the subscription.

Who Is Unroll.Me

Slice Technologies is the parent company that owns Unroll.Me. They are able to make Unroll.Me a free service because they collect data on the e-commerce emails you get. They use this data to, “build an anonymized market research products that analyze and track consumer trends.”

Slice says they strip all of the personal information (name, email, address, or anything else that could identify you) from the data collected. The technology behind Unroll.Me is designed to determine if the email is personal or e-commerce. The algorithm completely ignores the personal emails as it searches your inbox.

You can read their blog for more information to see what the data is used for. Some of the research they post is actually pretty fascinating but I am a nerd when it comes to data.

How to Use Unroll.Me

It literally took me five steps and less than five minutes of my life to unsubscribe from 74 subscriptions. I really could not believe that I was done already!

The algorithm will run. It searches through your inbox for subscriptions then spits out a list of them.

Click either ‘Keep in Inbox’, ‘Unsubscribe’, or ‘Add to Rollup’ (I’ll explain that later) for each subscription on the list.

Success!

Was that not super easy? I know! Right?!?!

Oh! I mentioned I would talk about what ‘Add to Rollup’ is. The Rollup is a single email that Unroll.Me will send to you at the end of the day. This email will consist all the content from every email that is apart of the Rollup from that day. I have not personally tried this yet but they say the Rollup email is very digestible and easy to read.

One final tip. You can have Unroll.Me notify you on a particular schedule to check for more subscriptions that were not in your inbox at the time. I decided to do the monthly reminder.

Why Unsubscribe?

We now live in a world where we are completely submerged by advertisements. The design of these advertisements is to tempt us to spend our hard earned money on materialistic items.

These ads do not stop with commercials, billboards, or temporarily tattooed to the back of that guy’s head on the bus. Subscription emails also drown us every day with more temptation.

Using the ease of Unroll.Me to unsubscribe from these emails trying derail us from our financial goals allows us to stay focused. This is why you should unsubscribe to these emails.

Also, they are just annoying. Unsubscribing will also help keep your blood pressure down.

Final Take

To wrap up this Unroll.Me review I must say that I really enjoyed my experience with this tool to free me from those spammy email subscriptions.

Look, I understand if you are skeptical because of the data collection. You are entitled to have those feelings! Especially after the latest Equifax data breach.

The algorithm design to strip out my personal information is what sold me to try out Unroll.Me. I understand if you are still skeptical after hearing that. But hey! As a data guy myself, I do know this technology exists and it is pretty amazing.

Overall, this is a great free service. If you can get over the data collection thing, then I think you will enjoy it just like I did.

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, has a net worth of over $78.2 billion and is known as one of the greatest investors of all time. So when he speaks, people take notes. Here are some of the top 22 Warren Buffett Quotes the internet can’t get enough of.

Top 22 Warren Buffett Quotes the Internet Can’t Get Enough Of

Here are some of the top Warren Buffet quotes found on every list of Warren Buffet quotes around the internet. These quotes range in wisdom on investing to regular life. I try to live by these quotes on my own investment portfolio.

Warren Buffett Quotes

1. Rule #1: Never lose money. Rule #2: Never forget rule #1

One of my favorite Warren Buffet Quotes. The fastest way to grow your money is to never lose it in the first place. This applies from saving on your groceries to focusing on less risky stocks of well established companies.

2. It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently

Think about the Wells Fargo or Equifax scandals. It takes years to build enough trust for someone to have brand loyalty. Warren Buffet quotes it takes 20 years, but it takes 5 minutes or less to destroy all that goodwill you’ve built. People are quick to revolt if you’ve done anything to betray their trust.

It is infinitely harder to build trust than destroy it.

3. Diversification is a protection against ignorance. It makes very little sense for those who know what they’re doing.

Multiple studies show that diversification in the stock market will help protect you against market falls. Or it could be summarized in the old proverb “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Unless you have insider information that a stock is going do really well, maintain a diversified portfolio to protect you. No one knows what they’re doing all the time.

4. If you aren’t willing to own a stock for ten years, don’t even think about owning it for ten minutes. Put together a portfolio of companies whose aggregate earnings march upward over the years, and so also will the portfolio’s market value.

Unless you’re a day trader (I will never be), you should only be investing in the stock market with the intention to hold those stocks for a long time. You can do really well as a beginner if you’re buying stocks and not planning on selling till you retire. Those are where you get the best returns. Warren Buffett is infamously known for rarely selling stocks.

5. It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

When you buy a stock, you should think of it as owning a piece of that company. You should be looking at wonderful companies that have a competitive advantage in the industry. Those are the companies that will do well over the long run. You may find a wonderful price on a mediocre company, but really what are you getting? A mediocre company that will likely be edged out of the market by a better company.

Many of the famous Warren Buffett quotes are about investing in strong companies with a competitive advantage and strong brand loyalty rather than cheap companies where you think you can make a quick buck. Warren Buffett is never into buying a company for a quick buck.

6. Be fearful when others are greedy. Be greedy when others are fearful.

During the 2008 financial crisis when investors were all exiting the market, Warren Buffett invested in a few large companies even though their stock prices were falling. Those deals made Warren Buffett over $10 billion dollars when the market stabilized and it’s continuing to show dividends. When the market goes upside down during world events, politics, market forecasts, those are the times when everyone else is fearful, that Warren Buffet sees an advantage when the markets crash.

Think about it this way, the New York Stock Exchange has been around since 1817, it has always recovered. Chances are, minus a world apocalypse, that the market will always bounce back. Those who capitalize on those downturns are usually rewarded.

7. The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.

One of my favorite Warren Buffett quotes because it has so many applications. You will see many opportunities in your life and you may want to jump on everyone, but it’s ok to be selective and say no. You’ll burn yourself out if you say “yes” to everything. This also applies to going out on a Saturday night with friends drinking. It’s ok to say “no” to save a few dollars or have a night to yourself to finish your article on Warren Buffett quotes. =)

This also applies to going out on a Saturday night with friends drinking. It’s ok to say “no” to save a few dollars or have a night to yourself to finish your article on Warren Buffett quotes. =)

8. Develop and build the habits you admire in others.

Remember all those times that your parents wanted you to hang out with those “good kids”. The habits of the people you surround yourself with rub off you on, consciously or unconsciously. When you find people like Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, who is one of the greatest investors of all time. You should find out what makes him so successful and learn those traits to improve yourself.

9. Passive investing will make you more money than active trading

Oh my goodness, fees are the WORST! Active trading requires more work and more fees, so more of your money will be paid to your broker. Yet studies have shown over and over that passive investing where you set your money and forget it are far more successful for growing wealth. I don’t plan to ever touch my stocks currently making dividends.

10. There seems to be some perverse human characteristic that likes to make easy things difficult.

Great quote, people always imagine things are more difficult than they really are. When I first considered starting investing, I thought there were so many hurdles and financial experts I would have to pay. Yet, when I finally decided I wanted to start investing in the stock market, I just downloaded the Robinhood App and started investing. It took 10 minutes to sign up and buy my first stock when I worried about investing in the stock market for over 5 years. Things are often more simple than you think they are.

11. Tell me who your heroes are and I’ll tell you who you’ll turn out to be.

This is similar to the Warren Buffett quote “Develop and build the habits you admire in others”. If you want to be an entrepreneur, start joining local meetups of entrepreneurs. You learn SO MUCH MORE when you surround yourself with the people you want to be like. You can learn A LOT in a book, but you’ll learn even more by surrounding yourself with people you admire.

12. We have long felt that the only value of stock forecasters is to make fortune-tellers look good.

No one can predict the stock market, no one. Not even Warren Buffett. Anyone who says they know exactly how the market works is trying to sell you something. You can lump stock forecasters being as accurate as the carnival fortune-tellers. You know the ones with 3 teeth, crystal ball and you’re going to die in 2083.

13. When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.

If you invest in an outstanding company, even if the stock price goes up, why would you ever sell it? No matter when you sell it, outstanding companies will continually do better and better. Don’t sell until you absolutely have to, otherwise, you’ll just be losing money in the long run. Many of Warren Buffett Quotes are like this, they are all very Anti-Day Trader.

14. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist. Investing is not a game where the guy with the 160 IQ beats the guy with 130 IQ.

If you follow the basic principals of Warren Buffett and buy outstanding companies with strong competitive advantages like Apple (AAPL). You don’t have to be a genius. Just buy and hold forever, you literally don’t have to do anything until you sell.

Many Warren Buffett quotes are similar to this because he stresses that anyone can invest in the stock market. The simplest way is just to invest in index funds that follow the market. Set it and forget it. The market sees an average increase of 7% per year and that’s WAY better than a savings account.

15. I try to buy stock in businesses that are so wonderful that an idiot can run them. Because sooner or later, one will.

Look for companies to invest in that are so strong that they can weather any storm because soon enough they will have to. Think about Apple (AAPL), as long as they keep pushing out iPhones it doesn’t matter who runs the company, they’ll continue to do well. People were worried when Steve Jobs passed because they didn’t know the future of the company, but Tim Cook stepped in and maintained the same Apple legacy. As long as Tim Cook sticks to the secret Apple recipe, they’ll be in good shape.

16. Buy into a company because you want to own it, not because you want the stock to go up.

If you see a company that you think is going to do well or heard will do well, don’t buy it unless you’re willing to hold it for awhile. If something goes wrong and the stock dives, you’re stuck with a company you don’t believe in and will likely sell at a lower price to get rid of it, ruining the reason you bought it in the first place.

17. Wall Street is the only place that people ride to work in a Rolls Royce to get advice from those who take the subway.

This is just a funny Warren Buffet quote.

18. Charlie and I have not learned how to solve difficult business problems. What we have learned is to avoid them.

I’m sure Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have learned how to solve difficult business problems, but the best way to navigate murky waters is to avoid them all together. The more problems your business can avoid, the better shape you’ll be. You can avoid a lot of problems from being proactive instead of reactive.

19. Long ago, Ben Graham taught me that “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”

Ben Graham, Warren Buffett’s mentor had this popular quote. I always think about it simply. Price is what you buy a stock for and Value is what you sell that same stock for.

20. It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.

If you can’t tell, Warren Buffett believes in surrounding yourself with the right people. He credits much of his success from surrounding himself with smart, good people.

21. If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

When you analyze a stock based on its historical performance, it’s called technical analysis. Yet past performance does not necessarily mean future performance. Just because you know what the stock has done in the past doesn’t mean it’s going to follow that same trend.

22. You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many things wrong.

It’s ok to mess up, focus on learning from those mistakes for the next time. It just sounds cooler when Warren Buffett quotes it. Or you can take this as no matter how many mistakes you’ve made in the past, you always have a chance to do more good. It’s one of those life quotes that can go many ways.

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